Reading Minds with Ultrasound: A Less-Invasive Technique to Decode the Brain's Intentions
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Reading Minds with Ultrasound: A Less-Invasive Technique to Decode the Brain's Intentions
Reading Minds with Ultrasound: A Less-Invasive Technique to Decode the Brain's Intentions
March 22, 2021
What is happening in your brain as you are scrolling through this page? In other words, which areas of your brain are active, which neurons are talking to which others, and what signals are they sending to your muscles?<br>Mapping neural activity to corresponding behaviors is a major goal for neuroscientists developing brain–machine interfaces (BMIs): devices that read and interpret brain activity and transmit instructions to a computer or machine. Though this may seem like science fiction, existing BMIs can, for example, connect a paralyzed person with a robotic arm; the device interprets the person's neural activity and intentions and moves the robotic arm correspondingly.<br>A major limitation for the development of BMIs is that the devices require invasive brain surgery to read out neural activity. But now, a collaboration at Caltech has developed a new type of minimally invasive BMI to read out brain activity corresponding to the planning of movement. Using functional ultrasound (fUS) technology, it can accurately map brain activity from precise regions deep within the brain at a resolution of 100 micrometers (the size of a single neuron is approximately 10 micrometers).<br>The new fUS technology is a major step in creating less invasive, yet still highly capable, BMIs.<br>"Invasive forms of brain–machine interfaces can already give movement back to those who have lost it due to neurological injury or disease," says Sumner Norman, postdoctoral fellow in the Andersen lab and co-first author on the new study. "Unfortunately, only a select few with the most severe paralysis are eligible and willing to have electrodes implanted into their brain. Functional ultrasound is an incredibly exciting new method to record detailed brain activity without damaging brain tissue. We pushed the limits of ultrasound neuroimaging and were thrilled that it could predict movement. What's most exciting is that fUS is a young technique with huge potential—this is just our first step in bringing high performance, less invasive BMI to more people."<br>The new study is a collaboration between the laboratories of Richard Andersen, James G. Boswell Professor of Neuroscience and Leadership Chair and director of the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Brain–Machine Interface Center in the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech; and of Mikhail Shapiro, professor of chemical engineering and Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator. Shapiro is an affiliated faculty member with the Chen Institute.<br>A paper describing the work appears in the journal Neuron on March 22.<br>In general, all tools for measuring brain activity have drawbacks. Implanted electrodes (electrophysiology) can very precisely measure activity on the level of single neurons, but, of course, require the implantation of those electrodes into the brain. Non-invasive techniques like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can image the entire brain but require bulky and expensive machinery. Electroencephalography (EEGs) does not require surgery but can only measure activity at low spatial resolution.<br>Ultrasound works by emitting pulses of high frequency sound and measuring how those sound vibrations echo throughout a substance, such as various tissues of the human body. Sound travels at different speeds through these tissue types and reflects at the boundaries between them. This technique is commonly used to take images of a fetus in utero, and for other diagnostic imaging.<br>Ultrasound can also "hear" the internal motion of organs. For example, red blood cells, like a passing ambulance, will increase in pitch as they approach the source of the ultrasound waves, and decrease as they flow away. Measuring this phenomenon allowed the researchers to record tiny changes in the brain's blood flow down to 100 micrometers (on the scale of the width of a human hair).<br>"When a part of the brain becomes more active, there's an increase in blood flow to the area. A key question in this work was: If we have a technique like functional ultrasound that gives us high-resolution images of the brain's blood flow dynamics in space and over time, is there enough information from that imaging to decode something useful about behavior?" Shapiro says. "The answer is yes. This technique produced detailed images of the dynamics of neural signals in our target region that could not be seen with other non-invasive techniques like fMRI. We produced a level of detail approaching electrophysiology, but with a far less invasive procedure."<br>The collaboration began when Shapiro invited Mickael Tanter, a pioneer in functional ultrasound and director of Physics for Medicine Paris...